“I’m a corporation. I exist to make money, OK?” Ward said
today in an interview at Bloomberg’s New York office. “You
can’t make money hauling passengers, so why would I want to do
that? That wouldn’t be fair to my shareholders.” CSX is the
third-largest major freight railroad in the U.S. by revenue.

If CSX were to advocate for high-speed rail, he said,
“it’s then ‘why aren’t you donating part of your infrastructure
to that?’ which I can’t do and be true to my obligation to my
shareholders.”

While moving more people by train might make sense for
society, letting passenger trains traveling faster than 90 miles
per hour share tracks with freight trains doesn’t make business
sense, said Ward, whose Jacksonville, Florida-based railroad
owns 21,000 miles of track east of St. Louis.

Obama has made building a national high-speed passenger
rail network a priority, and Congress has devoted more than
$10.5 billion to the program since it was created in 2009. Obama
is asking Congress to spend $8 billion on the initiative next
year and $53 billion in the next six years, to connect 80
percent of Americans to high-speed rail service within 25 years.
Republican opponents in Congress want to eliminate it.

Putting high-speed passenger trains on freight lines is not
practical because “the curvature and the elevation of the
freight rail” tracks cannot support trains operating at speeds
higher than 90 mph, Ward said. Those trains should run on
separate tracks, which may cost “tens of billions, if not
hundreds of billions” of dollars to build, he said.

New York Dispute

CSX and New York are in a dispute over the state’s plan to
provide passenger service between Albany and Buffalo with trains
going as fast as 110 mph. CSX will not allow trains traveling
faster than 90 mph on its tracks, citing potential damage.
Railroads such as Union Pacific, the largest freight rail
company by revenue, are working with states to upgrade their
tracks for passenger trains traveling as fast as 110 mph.

Ward said another concern for CSX is that freight trains,
which operate at 45 mph to 50 mph, may need more time to stop
and pull over if passenger train speeds increase, causing
increased disruption to its operations.